By MICHAEL TAVOLIERO

I have not been a fan of the Alaska Supreme Court.  

In my non-legal opinion, they have seldom gotten things right for the conservative movement in Alaska.

With that said, the Forrer decision is evidence of case law where the Court has properly defended the Alaska Constitution. 

The Sept. 4 Forrer decision told the Alaska Legislature and the governor the Alaska Tax Credit Certificate Bond enabling legislation was unconstitutional. House Bill 331 had allowed the Department of Revenue to issue subject-to-appropriation bonds to pay outstanding cashable oil and gas tax credits that were issued during a tax credit program that ended in 2017

In other words, HB 331 allowed the state to go into debt without the approval of the Alaska voter.  This violated the principle of Article IX of the Alaska Constitution.  The Alaska Legislature once again failed the Alaskan people.

As Justice Craig Stowers stated, the Alaskan Constitutional “delegates desired fiscal responsibility and public accountability; these principles reverberate throughout article IX of the Alaska Constitution. The clearest expression of this collective intent is contained in section 8: ‘No state debt shall be contracted unless authorized by law for capital improvements or . . . housing loans for veterans, and ratified by a majority of the qualified voters of the State who vote on the question.’”

Alaska Supreme Court delivered a true win for the Alaska people and a transparent judgment of our Alaska Legislature’s flagrant violation of our Constitution.

But let’s consider the Legislature’s propensity for this behavior.

Why do we continually spend the time and money having to deal with such obvious stupidity when the Legislature and the governor employ an army of attorneys who should have the good sense to stand and protect our constitutions, the elected officials who have sworn an oath to support and defend these and the State of Alaska?

HB331 was an example of when both progressives and conservatives attempt to play the same game.  In other words, how can the Legislature cheat the Alaskan people?

The Democrats are much better at this cheating game than the Republicans, who are new to this game.

The Democrats have demonstrated this through their conscientious posturing and positioning for control and domination of the Alaska Legislature together with their allies, the government unions, the education industry and the health care industry, over the past couple of decades in spite of an obvious Republican majority in both houses during these times.

The conservative side of the Republican party is even newer to the game and, unfortunately, have demonstrated in many cases that they are rank amateurs willing to be used in this game.

We, the public, have watched from afar the continued usurpation of the Legislature’s Uniform Rules of procedure, Alaska Statutes and the Alaska Constitution. These are abandoned to serve the self-interest of the Alaska Legislature’s leadership and its allies.

In other words, in the case of HB 331 as well as the Permanent Fund dividend, education, health care, and a list of others, a majority of the 60 men and women who are the elected representative body of the people and who have sworn an oath to support and defend the United States Constitution and Alaska Constitution have abandoned that oath and betrayed our Constitutions and the people they serve.

Our state’s legislative Uniform Rules and laws all are born through the painful delivery of debate and consensus out of our state Constitution. Their intent is clearly to provide law and order to the greatest state in the nation.

We, the public, over a longer time than most can remember, have watched the Alaska Legislature literally ignore this legal foundation and those edifices which have been built upon it in favor of a game so dangerous many of today’s legislators actually believe that their actions are right and just.

The malignant narcissism of professional politicians corrupts the past, present, and future of Alaska. The absence of constitutional conscience and selfish need for power and control are more obvious to the public than ever before in our history.

When legislators violate the Constitution, they break their oath of office and must be held accountable.  In many cases, through this recent primary, the voters held legislators accountable.

The Legislature’s position today is that they can violate whatever they want as long as the courts let them get away with it.  It is a planned event and we have witnessed this in plain sight.

The flip-side is part of the same arrangement. They allow the courts to “veto” even constitutional action the legislature takes, and Legislature agrees to obey the courts on those cases.

The irony is we have perhaps the strongest governor and Legislature constitutionally of any state in the nation.  We also have the least strong judiciary with the Legislature and governor in the ultimate driver’s seat on the judiciary’s budget.

Yet, the Alaska Supreme Court ends up running the state. 

Legislators are just deck chairs on the ship christened Alaska reminding many of us of the Titanic.

They get to play captain when the courts choose to let them submit and decry it is out of their control look what the judiciary just did.  They get to violate that which they swore to uphold. They dishonor the Uniform Rules , statutes, and the Constitution at times, with the blessings of the court.

If we don’t draw the line at following the law, we are guaranteed to lose in the long term. 

For the evidence of this, look at the PFD, Alaska education and Alaska health care.

It’s just like going to Las Vegas, except the city lights and excitement are way beyond our view and hidden from sight in Juneau. The House has the edge and will always win in the end when we continue to play the game of dishonoring our constitutional foundation. 

We may hope to win the first dice roll.  We may get lucky and the House ignores it, but if we keep playing, the House wins always. 

The Democrats know this. They play to win always.  

The progressive Republicans have learned this.  They also play the “play to win game.”

Sadly, some conservatives are going along with this because they have been seduced and told it is the right thing to do.

When someone refuses to play the game according to the arrangement in which Democrats are always guaranteed to win, they become an existential threat to the game continuing under the current arrangement.

Michael Tavoliero is a realtor at Core Real Estate Group in Eagle River, is active in the Alaska Republican Party and chairs Eaglexit.

By JOHN STURGEON

You’ve likely heard the saying that politicians are like diapers: they should be changed often, and for the same reason.

All joking aside, if we Alaskans want to change public policy, we have to change the people who control it. Voters of all political stripes understand this simple concept.

We Alaskans use a time-honored process for “changing diapers,” and it’s easy to understand: each person gets one vote, and the candidate who earns the most votes wins. But this November, Alaskans will be asked to vote on Ballot Measure 2, which would throw our election system into chaos. 

First, nearly all the money behind Ballot Measure 2 comes from out-of-state billionaires and special interest groups unknown to most Alaskans. I know from experience that outsiders rarely have Alaskans’ best interests at heart. That’s why I fought the federal government at the US Supreme Court twice when they wrongly tried to assert control over Alaska’s waterways.

So naturally, I became worried when I learned that 99% of the $1.1 million spent in support of Ballot Measure 2 comes from outside our state. This alone should ring alarm bells in voters’ minds. 

Perhaps the most sweeping change proposed in Ballot Measure 2 is to toss aside our “one Alaskan, one vote” system and replace it with a scheme known as ranked choice voting (RCV).

It’s so complicated, it’s hard to explain, but here’s the gist: voters would be forced to rank every candidate on the ballot, regardless if they wanted that particular candidate to win. Fail to do that, and that vote is at risk of being thrown out if no candidate receives over 50 percent of votes cast.

In this situation, a computer system (yes, you read that correctly) would calculate the winner using an algorithm that takes many pages to explain to voters. Under this nightmare scenario, the candidate who is declared the “winner” of an election could be someone who received far fewer votes than the first-place candidate, but instead received a significant number of second, third, or even fourth-choice rankings.

Confusing? Yes. And that’s the intent. 

Backers of Ballot Measure 2 claim this will ensure that each election produces a victor who has the support of a “majority” of voters. But they fail to explain how a tortured majority that was Frankensteined together by adding everyone’s third or fourth-place preferences is really what voters want. Bottom line, this new system is unnecessary; our time-tested system of the candidate with the most vote wins works just fine. 

Former Governor Sean Parnell (R) and former Senator Mark Begich (D) agree on this issue, admitting it’s a mess. They wrote in a Wall Street Journal editorial that ranked choice voting “encourages political trickery.” Special interests with political savvy will run wild, free to unleash unsavory candidate and ranking strategies aimed at forcing a computerized runoff and manipulating the final outcome. The political elite will benefit from these rigged elections while average Alaskan voters will lose their voice. The swamp is the only winner in this scenario. 

Stick with me, as there’s even more to attempt to explain. Another massive change proposed by Ballot Measure 2 is to completely throw out Alaska’s traditional primary elections and impose California’s “jungle primary” system. Candidates from all political parties, as well as nonpartisan candidates, would all appear on the same primary ballot. The top four vote-getters from this process would then advance to the general election. 

Once again, voters would be disenfranchised, because this process eliminates their right to select a political party nominee for the general election. In areas that are dominated by a single political party, multiple candidates from the same party would appear on the ballot, while smaller minority parties could lose their ability to advance a candidate to the general election. This could leave many voters with no desired candidate on the ballot. 

While I can’t speak to the motives of the New York and California billionaires funding Ballot Measure 2, I can tell you that the sweeping changes proposed by this initiative would disenfranchise Alaskan voters, invite voter manipulation and political trickery, and further erode trust in our democratic process.

It’s our responsibility to step up, speak out, and inform our neighbors about everything they stand to lose if Ballot Measure 2 becomes law. Sure, we may not have a ton of cash from out-of-state billionaires, but we still have something they don’t: the right to cast a vote in Alaska. Together, let’s protect the integrity of our elections and our votes by voting no on Ballot Measure 2.

John Sturgeon is chairman of Defend Alaska Elections—Vote No on 2. He previously spent 12 years fighting to reverse federal intrusion on Alaska’s public lands, achieving victory at the U.S. Supreme Court twice.

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